Anxious wait for NRC as date of publication nears

The first draft contained names of 1.9 crore Indian citizens living in Assam.

GUWAHATI: For several people who failed to make it to National Register of Citizens(NRC) on last two occasions, it is the anxious wait as date of publication of final NRC on August 31 is barely couple of days away.

Several members from Gorkha, Hindi-speaking people, Bengal-origin Muslims and Hindu Bengali have not been able to make it to draft NRC, which was published on in 2017 and 2018.

The first draft contained names of 1.9 crore Indian citizens living in Assam.

With names of 2, 89, 83,677 people final draft of NRC was published on July 30 last year. Around 4,007, 707 people could not make it to this final draft. On June 26 this year NRC was pruned further with Additional Draft Exclusion List excluding as many as 102,462 persons.

Mohan Kumar Shah, president of All Asom Bhojpuri Parishad for Tinsukia district, told ET, “In last two occasions large of number of Hindi speaking people were excluded. Several of people had their documentation ready despite that they were excluded.”

He added, “During the claim and objection process several people had to travel again to different states of India to fetch additional documents and summit to NRC authorities. Now the wait is of August 31. We will offer legal aid to those who failed to make it to NRC for people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and other states of India how can they be a foreigner or doubtful voter.”

Around 36.28 lakh have claimed for inclusion and 2 lakh people have registered their objections. These people were called for subsequent hearing where provisions were made to option biometric details.

Doubtful voter, is a category of voters in Assam who are disenfranchised for lack of citizenship credentials and barred from contesting elections and casting their votes.

Several Hindu Bengali organisations have planned protest in New Delhi on September 5 post release of NRC.

Sara Assam Bangali Ekya Mancha general secretary, Shantanu Mukherjee said that several Hindu Bengalis were axed out of the draft due to lack of documents. “A good number of people from this community are bracketed as foreigners and doubtful voters. There are people who owing to their poverty are not able to fight legal battle in tribunal.”

Meanwhile civil society organisations in Assam are holding meeting and requesting people to maintain peace and tranquility for even if their names are not there in the NRC legal recourse is available.